ANU links ice to psychosis

Dr Rebecca McKetin, of the Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing in the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, and colleagues tracked 278 methamphetamine – commonly known as ice – users over several years and found a clear dose-related increase in psychotic symptoms during periods of use, with around half experiencing psychotic symptoms when taking the drug daily.

“People describe being followed, spied on – they will take down the number plate of every car behind them, spend hours searching for bugging devices in their homes, and some won’t leave the house because they think that people are waiting for them outside,” said Dr McKetin.

“These experiences are often coupled with seeing or hearing things that aren’t there. It is disturbing for their friends and family and often very frightening for the person.”

On the other hand one has to wonder if a daily ice habit would not lead to significant well founded fear of both the police and the crime groups selling the drug.

“It seems the symptoms clear up when the drug use ends too.” but only for nine out of 10 of users. The other 10% presumably experienced ongoing psychotic symptoms.

I’ve often thought we should make Ice illegal. Oh, I forgot, it is illegal. Well that worked well then. Maybe it’s time to try a new strategy instead of the failed “War on Drugs”.

The reason for wasting money on the research is probably to try and get governments to take it seriously, which they still fail to do. Prisons and psychiatric hospitals are full of Ice users, and many members of the public have been victims of violence from people high on Ice, or committing serious crime to get money for Ice. The money spent on this research would pale into insignificance compared with the cost to society of Ice use.

“Dr Rebecca McKetin, of the Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing in the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, and colleagues tracked 278 methamphetamine – commonly known as ice – users “

““People describe being followed, spied on – they will take down the number plate of every car behind them, spend hours searching for bugging devices in their homes, and some won’t leave the house because they think that people are waiting for them outside,”

Apparently when these ice users tried to catch the people they thought were following them, those people vanished somewhere in the ANU!

The Sydney Morning Herald article gives a clear reason for why this research is significant. A lot of the existing research shows correlation not causation (meaning that it could be that psycotic people take ice or it could be that people who take ice end up with psycosis). This study specifically looked at causation, and over a longer period of time than usual.

It is relatively easy to prove correlation, proving causation takes a lot longer and so by the time you get the research out all the people who can’t distinguish between causation and correlation get on their high horses about “we already knew this” when actually we didn’t know this for sure, we just strongly suspected.

The Sydney Morning Herald article gives a clear reason for why this research is significant. A lot of the existing research shows correlation not causation (meaning that it could be that psycotic people take ice or it could be that people who take ice end up with psycosis). This study specifically looked at causation, and over a longer period of time than usual.

It is relatively easy to prove correlation, proving causation takes a lot longer and so by the time you get the research out all the people who can’t distinguish between causation and correlation get on their high horses about “we already knew this” when actually we didn’t know this for sure, we just strongly suspected.

The research doesn’t, and doesn’t claim to, show causation – in part because no causal mechanism is proposed. It does, however, investigate several factors that indicate that causation is likely.

It’s interesting that the odds ratios for methamphetamine combined with either alcohol or cannabis are similar.

If the ANU can track 278 ice users, why can’t the AFP do the same, get these folks off the drugs and then the dealers won’t have anyone to sell to? Problem solved. No more psychosis, no more needle exchanges, no more drug related crime etc. Why can users like these be protected for years from prosecution when it is OBVIOUS that they are not only breaking the law but supporting even worse cretins [suppliers]???
And all this is done by supposedly “educated” people earning big dollars. Why does nearly everything that comes out of the ANU make me just want to scream “Duh, I knew that already….”?

For a bit of practical experience, my ex-wife revealed to me after we were married that she’d been snorting ice for a couple of years and had only recently kicked the habit. “Well that’s good, then” I naively thought to myself at the time, not having the slightest idea what ice was, or what she was talking about.

As it turned out, she would periodically alternate between being a normal kind and gentle person, and a violent, incoherent shrieking banshee who would beat me with fists, feet and whatever came to hand. Her thought process would also regularly appear to be incoherent, and she had a whole bunch of other oddball symptoms and behaviours that could be considered unusual. It was certainly interesting to come home from work one day to discover that with one blow she’d punched her fist entirely through the gyprock in the dining room because one of the boys (aged 18 months) wasn’t eating his baby food.

I think she wasn’t all that stable to begin with due to a fairly weird upbringing, but I also think that a few years of frying her brain with ice contribute greatly to her looniness. It’s bad stuff, and it makes people do bad things.

Any un-natural substance going into the body has consequences, it is, after all common sense.

Go ingest some nice natural lead, barium or maybe cadmium salts (not man made! found naturally, part of mother natures earth!), then come back and give us some of that hippy spiel. That or oak tree mushrooms aka death caps. Can’t get much more ‘natural’ than mushrooms.

For a bit of practical experience, my ex-wife revealed to me after we were married that she’d been snorting ice for a couple of years and had only recently kicked the habit. “Well that’s good, then” I naively thought to myself at the time, not having the slightest idea what ice was, or what she was talking about.

As it turned out, she would periodically alternate between being a normal kind and gentle person, and a violent, incoherent shrieking banshee who would beat me with fists, feet and whatever came to hand. Her thought process would also regularly appear to be incoherent, and she had a whole bunch of other oddball symptoms and behaviours that could be considered unusual. It was certainly interesting to come home from work one day to discover that with one blow she’d punched her fist entirely through the gyprock in the dining room because one of the boys (aged 18 months) wasn’t eating his baby food.

I think she wasn’t all that stable to begin with due to a fairly weird upbringing, but I also think that a few years of frying her brain with ice contribute greatly to her looniness. It’s bad stuff, and it makes people do bad things.

I don’t wish to criticize your rigorous scientific methodology, but you sample size seems a little on the small side

I don’t wish to criticize your rigorous scientific methodology, but you sample size seems a little on the small side

The sample size is small, but I don’t think LSWCHP was making any claims to rigorous scientific methodology. I interpreted it as him relating an anecdote.

Agreed and while there is conclusive empirical evidence that excessive consumption of alcohol is a trigger for mindless,stupid,violent behaviour, apparently the jury is still out as to whether ice is quite as problematic.Mind you Giordian Fulde head of Emergency St Vincents has said ‘I’ve never seen anything as violent. It is just like a berserk animal. Nothing, no other drugs medical or illegal has anybody just as berserk’. They even have an isolation cell there to cope with the ice violence.

I don’t wish to criticize your rigorous scientific methodology, but you sample size seems a little on the small side

The sample size is small, but I don’t think LSWCHP was making any claims to rigorous scientific methodology. I interpreted it as him relating an anecdote.

That’s pretty much it. My one experience with an Ice user ruined my life for a decade. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I reckon her drug use contributed a lot to my misery. Nothing scientific about that, just my story and make of it what you will.

I don’t wish to criticize your rigorous scientific methodology, but you sample size seems a little on the small side

The sample size is small, but I don’t think LSWCHP was making any claims to rigorous scientific methodology. I interpreted it as him relating an anecdote.

That’s pretty much it. My one experience with an Ice user ruined my life for a decade. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I reckon her drug use contributed a lot to my misery. Nothing scientific about that, just my story and make of it what you will.

Don’t mind stevian, a champion for the scum. Any one with brains can see you were telling a personal experience and did not even allude to saying all ice users are violent scumbags(you don’t need to say that all of already know).

I don’t wish to criticize your rigorous scientific methodology, but you sample size seems a little on the small side

The sample size is small, but I don’t think LSWCHP was making any claims to rigorous scientific methodology. I interpreted it as him relating an anecdote.

That’s pretty much it. My one experience with an Ice user ruined my life for a decade. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I reckon her drug use contributed a lot to my misery. Nothing scientific about that, just my story and make of it what you will.

This is not an isolated story. I know several people who have used other drugs, including dope, who have basically destroyed their brains and lives. This isn’t a scientific study either, and maybe these people were nutjobs waiting to happen, but I think there is definitely a link of some kind. Describing and quantifying that link conclusively is the hard part.

The Sydney Morning Herald article gives a clear reason for why this research is significant. A lot of the existing research shows correlation not causation (meaning that it could be that psycotic people take ice or it could be that people who take ice end up with psycosis). This study specifically looked at causation, and over a longer period of time than usual.

It is relatively easy to prove correlation, proving causation takes a lot longer and so by the time you get the research out all the people who can’t distinguish between causation and correlation get on their high horses about “we already knew this” when actually we didn’t know this for sure, we just strongly suspected.

The research doesn’t, and doesn’t claim to, show causation – in part because no causal mechanism is proposed. It does, however, investigate several factors that indicate that causation is likely.

It’s interesting that the odds ratios for methamphetamine combined with either alcohol or cannabis are similar.

But longituinal studies are better able to make inferences about causation than cross-sectional (single point in time) studies. So this one’s a step in the right direction.

If the ANU can track 278 ice users, why can’t the AFP do the same, get these folks off the drugs and then the dealers won’t have anyone to sell to? Problem solved. No more psychosis, no more needle exchanges, no more drug related crime etc. Why can users like these be protected for years from prosecution when it is OBVIOUS that they are not only breaking the law but supporting even worse cretins [suppliers]???
And all this is done by supposedly “educated” people earning big dollars. Why does nearly everything that comes out of the ANU make me just want to scream “Duh, I knew that already….”?

Because the users buy their Ice illegally on the black market, and the AFP don’t know they’re buying it nor who they’re buying it from.